Walk into most recruitment consulting offices now days, and its like walking into a typing pool. Everyone bashing away at emails, texts, and social networking updates.

Now here is the point. About 70% of the e-mails we send are unnecessary, or at least the message could have been better delivered verbally. Sending email is a missed opportunity much of the time. It’s also supremely unproductive.

Recruiting is about relationships. Selling is about hunting, persuading, seducing and consummating. Email is bland, annoying and often not read by our clients.

Please do not misunderstand my message here. Email and the newer technologies and communications platforms have incredible application and I use them all the time. I am after all engaging with you via a blog and via a video too, right now. But I keep asking myself “what outcome am I trying to achieve, and am I more likely to achieve it by phone or face-to-face?”

Our job as recruiters is about compelling people to action. What we do, or should do, is create outcomes and facilitate decisions. Email does not do that. Your job is about selling, understanding and building trust. Email does not do that.

Success in recruitment is about connecting. Technology is an enabler. If you want to compete, make sure you and your team talk to clients and candidates on every possible occasion. Ask questions, listen actively, and solve problems.

Challenge people in your office. Why send an email? Why not pick up the phone or even go and see the person?

Less email, less typing, less laptop, less desktop. More talking, more listening, more asking, more necktop!

5 Comments

Hi Greg,
Good observation. I find through the use of FB, T, Email and web that I easily lose touch with my contacts when not careful . If I go back to my original training and "apprenticeship" years it was all about phones and face to face. Ok - so Twitter etc wasnt around (although social media was) but the message was clear. Being an owner operator now, it is easy to chose an online form of communication versus a trip out because of the many other things needing your attention so a double trap there I have found.
A good message and I like the use of YouTube in the blog.

I once read a great comment from the UK recruitment trainer Dean Gollings: The sound of tap-tap-tap on keyboards is the sound of money landing in your competitors' bank accounts.
So on that note I'll stop typing this and get on the phone!

"Recruitment is a contact sport"... haven't heard that for YEARS - and that's a shame. It's all about relationships, kinda my point here (http://wp.me/pPmPM-1n). It's also what's guided some of our work. Recruiters want to be on Twitter, recruiters should be on Twitter - but they should absolutely not neglect the personal aspect that's always been the key to a great recruiter. Partner with a good technology enabler so you CAN maintain a presence where you need to - but not to the detriment of real relationships.

Totally agree with Greg and Mike.
The more calls you make the more connections you make. The more connections you make the more calls you get back. The more calls you get back the more jobs you get. The more jobs you get the more interviews you get. The more interviews you get the more placements you make. The more placements you make the more money you earn...
Mike Walmsley taught me this over 10 years ago and it it never fails...
When you stop making calls this all dries up...

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GREG SAVAGE

With a career spanning four decades, Greg is a founder of 4 highly successful businesses, is a trusted advisor and respected voice across the global recruitment and professional services industries, and a regular keynote speaker at conferences around the world.